Colonel David Gurney (USMC Ret.), Editor of Joint Force Quarterly and Director of National Defense University Press, has been closely following the debate between John Nagl and Gian Gentile and our guest commentators here on Small Wars Journal. For SWJ newcomers or the uninitiated - this debate has centered on the kinds of threats the U.S. will face in the period ahead and how U.S. ground forces should prepare for those threats.

Colonel Gurney has kindly -- and we greatly appreciate this -- granted SWJ permission to post a Nagl-Gentile "point-counterpoint" that will appear in the January 2009 issue of JFQ.

Without further ado here it is:

POINT: Let's Win the Wars We're In by John Nagl

A stunning if predictable development in the military community over the past 2 years has been the backlash against the promulgation of counterinsurgency learning in the midst of the ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars have spurred long-overdue changes in the way the U.S. military prepares for and prioritizes irregular warfare. These changes are hard-won: they have been achieved only after years of wartime trials and tribulations that have cost the United States dearly in money, materiel, and the lives of its courageous Service-members.

Yet despite the relatively tentative nature of such changes, there are already those who predict grim strategic outcomes for America if its military, particularly the Army, continues the process of adaptation. Gian Gentile, the vocal Army critic of counterinsurgency adaptation, has written that a "hyper-emphasis on counterinsurgency puts the American Army in a perilous condition. Its ability to fight wars consisting of head-on battles using tanks and mechanized infantry is in danger of atrophy." He is not alone in his views. Three brigade commanders in the Iraq War wrote a white paper warning about the degradation of seldom used field artillery, declaring that the Army is "mortgaging [its] ability to fight the next war" by neglecting the requirements for combined arms operations. The Army Secretary, Pete Geren, and Chief of Staff, General George Casey, both assert that the Army is "out of balance" in part because of "a focus on training for counterinsurgency operations to the exclusion of other capabilities." Prominent civilian thinkers in the academic community have presented similar arguments. With such dire warnings, one might forget that there's a war on right now...

Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl, USA (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

COUNTERPOINT: Let's Build an Army to Win All Wars by Gian Gentile

The U.S. Army officer corps has not seriously debated the content of the many doctrinal field manuals (FM) published over the past 2 years (for example, FM 3--24, Counterinsurgency, FM 3--0, Operations, and FM 3--07, Stability Operations and Support Operations). Though these manuals have been successfully pushed through the bureaucratic lines of the Army's senior leadership, few other officers raised questions about the wisdom of employing American military power to build nations where none exist or where an American military presence is not wanted. Instead, the Army has been steamrolled by a process that proposes its use as an instrument of nationbuilding in the most unstable parts of the world. Nationbuilding, rather than fighting, has become the core function of the U.S. Army.

The Army under the Petraeus Doctrine "is entering into an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous - with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier's repertoire." The implication of this doctrine is that the Army should be transformed into a light infantry-based constabulary force designed to police the world's endless numbers of unstable areas. The concept rests on the assumption that the much- touted "surge" in Iraq was a successful feat of arms, an assertion that despite the claims of punditry supporters in the press has yet to be proven. The war in Iraq is not yet over...

Colonel Gian P. Gentile, USA, is Director of the Military History Program at the United States Military Academy.

Discuss at Small Wars Council

President-elect Barack Obama is leaning toward asking Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain in his position for at least a year, according to two Obama advisers. A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates would likely accept the offer if it is made.

No final decision has been made, and Obama aides said other people are also under serious consideration for the defense post, one of the most highly coveted in any new cabinet. Several prominent Democrats, including former Clinton Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and former Clinton Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, are also being considered.

The decision on retaining Mr. Gates will be the clearest indication to date of the incoming administration's thinking about Iraq and Afghanistan...

More at The Wall Street Journal. Now, what's this purple thing you are talking about Spencer? Also see Spencer's Another Year's Worth Of Gates?

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

On Veterans Day, we pay tribute to the service and sacrifice of the men and women who in defense of our freedom have bravely worn the uniform of the United States.

From the fields and forests of war-torn Europe to the jungles of Southeast Asia, from the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan, brave patriots have protected our Nation's ideals, rescued millions from tyranny, and helped spread freedom around the globe. America's veterans answered the call when asked to protect our Nation from some of the most brutal and ruthless tyrants, terrorists, and militaries the world has ever known. They stood tall in the face of grave danger and enabled our Nation to become the greatest force for freedom in human history. Members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard have answered a high calling to serve and have helped secure America at every turn.

Our country is forever indebted to our veterans for their quiet courage and exemplary service. We also remember and honor those who laid down their lives in freedom's defense. These brave men and women made the ultimate sacrifice for our benefit. On Veterans Day, we remember these heroes for their valor, their loyalty, and their dedication. Their selfless sacrifices continue to inspire us today as we work to advance peace and extend freedom around the world.

With respect for and in recognition of the contributions our service members have made to the cause of peace and freedom around the world, the Congress has provided (5 U.S.C. 6103(a)) that November 11 of each year shall be set aside as a legal public holiday to honor America's veterans.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim November 11, 2008, as Veterans Day and urge all Americans to observe November 9 through November 15, 2008, as National Veterans Awareness Week. I encourage all Americans to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of our veterans through ceremonies and prayers. I call upon Federal, State, and local officials to display the flag of the United States and to support and participate in patriotic activities in their communities. I invite civic and fraternal organizations, places of worship, schools, businesses, unions, and the media to support this national observance with commemorative expressions and programs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Remembrance Day -- also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day (the event it commemorates) or Veterans Day -- is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918. The day was specifically dedicated by King George V, on 7 November 1919, to the observance of members of the armed forces who were killed during war; this was possibly done upon the suggestion of Edward George Honey to Wellesley Tudor Pole, who established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917.

Common British, Canadian, South African, and ANZAC traditions include two minutes of silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (11:00 am, 11 November), as that marks the time (in the United Kingdom) when armistice became effective.

In Australia Remembrance Day is always observed on 11 November, although the day is not a public holiday. Services are held at 11am at war memorials in suburbs and towns across the country, at which "Last Post" is sounded by a bugler and a one-minute silence is observed.

The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants' compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. Officials watched the entire mission - captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft - in real time in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center at the agency's headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away.

More at the New York Times, The Times, and Daily Telegraph.

The Old Gray Blabbermouth - Max Boot, Commentary's Contentions

The New York Times continues its series of articles exposing top-secret US operations in the War on Terror. Today's installment, as Abe mentioned, describes US Special Operations incursions into Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, and other countries under the terms of an executive order signedby President Bush.

Portions of these revelations have already been leaked in the past, making this piece less harmful than previous Times classics such as this 2005 article in which the Paper of Record exposed secret wiretapping of terrorists. Or this article from the Washington Post which exposed the CIA's overseas prisons in which top terrorists were held. But it's bad enough.

I can't help thinking that such operational details never would have been revealed in a war--say World War II--that the editors of these newspapers believed was worth fighting.

More at Contentions.

Pentagon Counterterror Teams Go Deep - Jeff Stein, Congressional Quarterly

It's interesting to speculate on why the expanded operations of Pentagon counterterror teams surfaced in the New York Times today. But one of them has to be that the noses of CIA and State Department officials remain severely out of joint from an initiative launched right after the 9/11 attacks by President Bush and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

According to the Times, a 2004 order identified "15 to 20 countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf states, where Qaeda militants were believed to be operating or to have sought sanctuary, a senior administration official said."

Soon enough, American ambassadors, who are supposed to be the top US official in a foreign country, grew increasingly annoyed by Pentagon "cowboys" zipping in and out, congressional committees heard.

But if only because the State Department, and the CIA, couldn't keep DoD out of their sandboxes, they have been supporting the operations, the Times said.

More at Congressional Quarterly.

"Secret Order" to Target al Qaeda Not So Secret - Bill Roggio, The Weekly Standard's The Blog

The New York Times tells us today that the Bush administration granted approval for the US military "to use new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States." The US military used this "broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere," the Times reports.

But anyone who has been remotely following operations against al Qaeda and its allied terror groups has long been able to deduce the US government has granted approval for the military and CIA to attack high value targets outside of the hot zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. This was one of the worst-kept "secrets" because the high-profile nature of the operations can't remain hidden.

With very little time and effort, I tracked down seven of these so-called secret attacks. One of the most brazen attacks occurred in the country of Madagascar in January 2007. That's right, Madagascar. US special operations forces from the hunter killer teams of Task Force 88 (back then it was called Task Force 145, the name has likely changed yet again) killed Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, one of Osama bin Laden's brothers-in-law who has deep roots in al Qaeda as a financier and facilitator.

More at The Blog.

Did Secret Orders Keep US Commandos in Somalia? - David Axe, Wired's Danger Room

Fifteen years ago, a botched Special Forces raid targeting warlords in Mogadishu resulted in the deaths of 18 US servicemen and hundreds of others. The battle, recounted in the book and film Black Hawk Down, cut short an ambitious peacekeeping plan for war-torn Somalia.

Since then, US special operators have returned to the lawless East African country, thanks to secret orders approved in 2004 by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush, and reported yesterday in the New York Times. So now, the question becomes: How often have those commandos been in Somalia, and how long have they stayed?

More at Danger Room.

A 13-year-old girl became Iraq's latest suicide bomber today, killing four people at a security checkpoint in the town of Baquba.

On a day of renewed violence, at least 31 people were killed in a double bombing at a Baghdad market, the deadliest attack to rock the Iraqi capital in months. The attackers first detonated a car bomb in the Sunni district of Adhamiyah, hitting a minibus carrying girls to school. As a crowd gathered to help the girls, a suicide bomber ran in and blew himself up.

The Interior Ministry said that 31 people were killed and 71 wounded in the deadliest to hit Baghdad since June 17 when 51 people were killed in a car bombing in the Al-Hurriya district.

In the Baquba attack, the girl blew herself up at a checkpoint manned by members of the Sunni Muslim 'Awakening' councils, which have led the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq. Four men, including a leading Sunni militiaman, were killed and 15 civilians wounded.

More at The Times.

The Bush administration's plans to increase the US military role in Afghanistan include a $100 million expansion next year of the Kandahar airfield, to accommodate aircraft working for Task Force ODIN, the once-secret Army fighting units that have been successful in Iraq.

The US Army Corps of Engineers, according to a notice issued Thursday, has set Wednesday as the "tentative" date for putting out the contract to design and build a secure area for the aircraft. It will have facilities, hangars, ramps and taxiways "for up to twenty-six (26) generic Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft with shelters at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan."

Task Force ODIN -- the acronym derives from "observe, detect, identify and neutralize" -- is named for the chief Norse god of art, culture, war and the dead. The Army put the ODIN concept together last year to tackle the problem of roadside explosions, which had become the main method of attacking military and truck convoys. In September, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told Congress that he wanted to replicate the ODIN units in Afghanistan as soon as possible.

More at The Washington Post.

... Infantry footwear has been slogging though mud for centuries, but boots on the ground is a relatively new expression. Earliest citation that Matthew Seelinger, chief historian of the Army Historical Foundation, can find is in an April 11, 1980, article in The Christian Science Monitor. During the Iranian hostage crisis, plans for a rescue operation were made in the Carter administration, and there were worries that the Soviet Union would intervene. "Many American strategists now argue that even light, token US land forces - 'getting US combat boots on the ground' " - as the four-star general Volney Warner put it - "would signal to an enemy that the US... can only be dislodged at the risk of war." The vivid figure of speech soon triumphed over the formal "infantry in the field."

More at The New York Times.

MARINE CORPS ORDERS

No. 47 (Series 1921)

HEADQUARTERS U.S. MARINE CORPS

Washington, November 1, 1921

759. The following will be read to the command on the 10th of November, 1921, and hereafter on the 10th of November of every year. Should the order not be received by the 10th of November, 1921, it will be read upon receipt.

(1) On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name "Marine". In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

(2) The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world's history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation's foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

(3) In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term "Marine" has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

(4) This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps.

JOHN A. LEJEUNE,

Major General Commandant

75705--21

Grenades are thrown at popular gatherings. Mutilated corpses flood the morgues. Heavily armed gunmen blast police to shreds with high-powered automatic weapons. Just another day in Iraq or Afghanistan? No-all of the events described occur regularly in Mexico. Our southern neighbor is imploding under the weight of a criminal insurgency just as dangerous any crew of bomb-tossing jihadists--an insurgency that may soon envelop our borders.

Mexico has always struggled with crime and corruption, but its present troubles can be traced to the mid-90s downfall of the Colombian cartels. Those mega-cartels, epitomized by the excess of Pablo Escobar, directly threatened the Colombian state and lost. As nature abhors a vacuum, the gap was filled by Mexican drug cartels bolstered by gargantuan drug profits. These cartels burrowed into the superstructure of the Mexican state, corrupting the poorly paid civil servants and police officers that make up the Mexican bureaucracy. Those who refused to take a bribe earned a bullet to the brain for their scruples. The cartel evolution in political and financial affairs was matched by a rise in military power, as the narco-gangs built up a capable cadre of enforcers poached from the Mexican military's Special Forces. These men, known as the Zetas, enabled the cartels to gain a tactical advantage against the poorly equipped Mexican local and state police.

Worst of all, the sheer size of the black economy--$40 billion as estimated by Stratfor's George Friedman--strangles legitimate enterprise and concentrates power in the hands of a few narco-warlords. These criminal enterprises amass power and legitimacy as the Mexican state loses the trust of its citizens. As a result, Mexico's periphery has become a lawless wasteland controlled largely by the drug cartels, but the disorder is rapidly spreading into the interior. In a cruel parody of the "ink-blot" strategy employed by counterinsurgents in Iraq, ungoverned spaces controlled by insurgents multiply as the territorial fabric of the Mexican state continues to dissolve.

More at Defense and the National Interest.